In November of this year, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, the Pope’s “minister” for the Eastern Churches for over fifteen years, will celebrate his 80th birthday. Of the four Argentine cardinals in the College of Cardinals, only one will be an elector because there are five years left before the maximum age of 80 to vote in the election of the next Pope: Archbishop of Buenos Aires Mario Poli, created by Francis.

This novelty diminishes the power of presence of Argentines in the Vatican structures, which is very active. It is worth remembering who they are and what they do or have done.

Sandri was a cardinal of considerable influence, who began a brilliant career at a very young age in the diplomatic corps of the Holy See, from 1974 until he moved from Apostolic Nuncio (ambassador) to Mexico to an important leap: Pope John Paul II in 2000. He appointed Substitute of the Secretariat of State for General Affairs on 16 September of the same year.

It concerns a strategic position for the daily closeness to the Pope. When Karol Wojtyla’s Parkinson’s disease worsened, it was Cardinal Sandri who read his speeches, which made him popular among the faithful.

They called him “the voice of the Pope” and it was he who, at dusk on April 2, 2005, from St. Peter’s Square, announced to the crowd following the agony of John Paul II, that the Polish Pope, now a saint, it was dead.

Benedict XVI, German Pope Joseph Ratzinger, promoted sandri as Prefect of the Dicastery for the Oriental Churches in 2013, a position in which he was confirmed by his compatriot Pope Jorge Bergoglio in 2013, when he was elected and he kept it after his resignation due to the age limit of 75 years. He finally retired a few months ago.

Teachers

Very active, as always, are professors José María del Corral and Enrique Palmeyro who direct the global educational network Scholas Ocurrentes, born in Argentina on the initiative of Jorge Bergoglio when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires and with them he founded the “Escuela de Vecinos” and the “Private schools.

Shortly after being elected Pope, Francis promoted him to the International Organization of Pontifical Right on August 13, 2013.

Since, the growth of Scholas Ocurrentes has been impressive. Del Corral and Palmeyra were appointed by Francisco as advisors to the Congregation for Catholic Education in August 2015.

The organization has offices in fifteen countries with its network spread across 190 nations, “integrating 400,000 education centres, reaching more than one million children and young people worldwide”.

Another professor, this time at the Buenos Aires Law School, famous for his political militancy, is John Graboisgroup leader of the Confederation of Workers of the Popular Economy and representative of the Movement of Excluded Workers (MTE).

The Pope has appointed him as a consultant to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, an organization of the Roman Curia dedicated to “action-oriented studies” for the international promotion of human rights, justice and peace from the perspective of the Catholic Church.

The mission of the new “ministry”, called Dicastery for Integral Human Development, is so broad that the Pope has decided to temporarily personally direct the special section for Migrants and Refugees and bring together the four Councils in the new mega area dedicated to social issues and human rights.

The reform of the Roman Curia, which lasted almost a decade, also made it necessary to bring together in a single “ministry”, called the Dicastery for Communication, all the realities of the territory, from the Vatican Television Center, to the The Osservatore Romano, Vatican Radio, the Press Office of the Holy See and other bodies.

Communication

At the top, below the Prefect, is the Secretary for Communications of the Holy See. He is an Argentinian, Monsignor Lucio Adrián Ruiz, 57, from Santa Fe. IT specialist, former head of the Vatican’s Internet service.

But the priest and theologian Ruiz is also a biomedical doctor, professor, company administrator, collaborator of the Sacred Congregation for the Clergy. He is the author of a highly regarded thesis on the Theology of Communication.

The Pope has appointed the Argentine bishop as councilor of the Apostolic Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See Gustavo Zanchetta, who had resigned from the diocese of Oran. While allegations of abuse of seminarians and faithful flourished in Salta, Zanchetta lived in the internal hotel of Santa Marta in the Vatican, where the pontiff stays.

He had to travel to our country to defend himself and was sentenced last year by a criminal court in Oran to four and a half years in prison, which he is serving for sexual abuse of two former seminarians. The outcome of the internal process followed in the Holy See is not known.

That monsignor hasn’t stopped attracting attention inside and outside the Vatican Fabiano Pedacchio he would return to the Congregation of Bishops, where he arrived from Buenos Aires in 2007 advised by the then archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Bergoglio.

As soon as he was elected pope, Francis appointed him his personal secretary. His performance was very good, according to local news. Pedacchio is a River fan, he loves García Márquez’s novels and, according to an interview with him, also Pedro Almodovar’s films.

Why did he leave as secretary to the Pope? Everyone believes their version. Bergoglio argues that these charges must be scaled and Pedacchio agrees: he wanted to return to the Congregation for Bishops and the pontiff kept his promise not to keep him indefinitely.

The auxiliary bishop of La Plata, Monsignor Alberto Bochatey, since 2017 he has been appointed member of the Board of Directors of the Pontifical Academy for Life. In June of that year, Francisco appointed him apostolic commissioner to investigate allegations of sexual abuse at the Próvolo Institute in Mendoza.

The reverend’s short stay in Rome was surrounded by a certain mystery Augusto Zampini, who came from San Isidro, appointed by the Pope two years ago as deputy secretary of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development. He was delegated to the Vatican Commission in charge of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Zampini immediately showed, in a meeting with the correspondents of the foreign press in Rome, excellent intellectual gifts and precise ideas. He has extensive training in Britain, including as a researcher at Cambridge University.

A few months later, while the Dicastery was moved by the exclusion of its prefect, Ghanaian cardinal Peter Turkson, without explanation, the appointment of a nun and the exclusion of a monsignor and the Argentine Augusto Zampini who “returned to their dioceses ” they were announced. .

Zampini limited himself to thanking the Pope for his appointment and said that entering the Commission in charge of the Covid-19 pandemic “in a new phase”, he had asked in communion with his bishop, that of San Isidro, to be able to return in his diocese…

In Vatican circles it was hypothesized that the dynamism of the reverend Zampini had he collided with the bureaucratic slowness of his superiorsbut the mystery has not been clarified.

Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson reappeared on stage at the announcement of his papal appointment as chancellor of the Vatican Academy of Sciences and Academy of Social Sciences. After 24 years in office, the time has come for Argentine bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo to retire. who turned 80 in September.

Much of Argentina’s activity in recent years has passed through the Academy and the good sensitivity of Sánchez Sorondo towards the problems of our country, also in the comings and goings with international organizations and their central characters.

space for women

The Pope has developed a strategy to integrate women, the neglected half of heaven in the Church, into Church governance structures. For instance, appointed three women to the Dicastery for Bishops, in charge of the appointments of the more than five thousand Episcopalians of the Church in the world.

Among the three nominated is the Argentine layman Maria Lia Zervinopresident of the World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations and member of the Association of Consecrated Virgins Serves.

In an interview, Zervino said he considered the appointment of three women who will be present in the “last resort” before the prefect of the dicastery, the current Canadian cardinal Marc Ouellet, to present the final report to the pope as “historic”. potential bishops that the pontiff decides.

María Lía said that the female perspective “can provide a different point of view, a different way of looking at reality, of facing problems and looking for solutions”.

Another female Argentine presence in the Vatican For years, Silvina Pérez has been the journalist who edits the weekly Spanish-language edition of Roman observerthe newspaper of the Holy See.

The Pope also appointed the Argentine theologian Emilce Cuda as head of the office of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, a body of the Roman curia which has the function of “advising and helping the particular Churches of Latin America”.

Cuda, married and mother of two, is the first woman to hold an executive position at that level. She is a theologian who was a disciple of the Jesuit father Juan Carlos Scannone, who was also a teacher of doctrine for the first Jesuit pope in the history of the Church, Jorge Bergoglio.

He is a specialist in People’s Theology, which, starting from Scannone, developed in Argentina as an alternative to the Liberation Theology that flourished in Latin America starting in the 1960s. She is also an expert on the theological roots of populism, which she developed at the University of Chicago.

Vatican correspondent

B. C